Tassie man finds his namesake online, flies him over

SAM Mitchell's mates were having a few drinks and searching for people who shared their names on Facebook for a bit of a laugh when he found Sam Mitchell.

The apprentice plasterer from Launceston, Tasmania, immediately sent his namesake a friend request, just to see what would happen.

"You may be wondering why I have sent you a friend request. I had to because we share the same name. Middle name as well. Good day sir," he wrote.

Almost immediately, the reply came back: "Yeah, and what is stranger is that I've just moved from the UK to Australia."

Fast forward four hours, and they booked a flight for the British Sam Mitchell to fly over the next day to spend New Year's Eve with the Tassie Sam Mitchell.

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"I was in the library doing a job search, and I got a message from a random bloke. I wrote on his Facebook, 'F***ing class name mate'. All his friends started liking and commenting on it, and then they all said they'd put in 20 quid to bring me over," said British Sam, who's in Australia for a working holiday.

"We weren't expecting him to come, and then he sent us a picture of him in the plane and we thought, 'He's as crazy as we are'," Tassie Sam laughed.

The lads picked British Sam up from the airport.

"Two of the guys hadn't been to bed all night, they'd been on a bit of a bender. One of them wasn't wearing shoes, he was so pissed he forgot to put them on," said British Sam.

"I think that's how it came about, actually. They were all pissed when they sent the message."

Then went to a mate's place, and staged a unique event that will go down in history as the "Sam Mitchell Olympics".

It was a series of three events: Bucket Racing, Bean Boozled, and Beer Pong.

"We had some buckets, so we did a bucket race instead of a sack race," Tassie Sam told news.com.au.

"At the halfway point we had to down a beer," British Sam added.

"I don't know if you've ever tried to jump in a bucket after downing a beer, but it wasn't easy. I wouldn't recommend it, to be honest.

"Bean Boozled is like jelly beans, and there's two of each colour. One is nice, one's disgusting, like one will be chocolate, one will be doog food. It was who could eat the most of them."

"One was vomit, that put us both over the handrail," Tassie Sam said.

"Then Beer Pong was an obvious choice."

When asked who won, both laughed and immediately said: "Sam Mitchell".

However, when pressed for details, it became clear that it was a bit of a whitewash, and British Sam trounced Tassie Sam three-nil.

The boys ended up hitting the town - and it was a memorable New Year for both.

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"We shared a kiss at midnight," Tassie Sam admitted.

"It had been tossed around a bit while we were having a few drinks. The more we drank, the better an idea it became."

It was his first time kissing a bloke, and he's not in a rush to repeat it.

"I've done it before, but it was always just for a laugh. It was even better since he's got my name, to be honest, it didn't feel as weird," British Sam confided.

Although they partied until 4:30am, they managed to get up for a day trip to Cataract Gorge, so British Sam could see some Tassie wildlife.

"I'd never seen a wallaby before, and now I've seen one - a white one!" he said.

"He'd only been in Melbourne, so he hadn't seen much," Tassie Sam said.

The boys have parted ways, but still keep in touch.

"I would recommend everyone looks up people on Facebook with the same name, and invites them all out until someone says yes," British Sam told news.com.au.